First Posted: 2/12/2015
WAPAKONETA — Many area swim teams will be diving into their respective sectional swim and dive meets this weekend at the Lima YMCA.
Wapakoneta hopes to defend its title from last year and send its team onto districts.
The Redskins are coming off their first Western Buckeye League Championship on both the boys’ side and the girls’ side. The boys held off second place Shawnee 346 to 252 while the girls beat out Ottawa-Glandorf 325 to 270.
“It just kind of clicked and everything went well,” Wapakoneta coach Mark Law said. “Our depth and the size of our team has been the key this year. This will be key going into sectionals. We have a lot of quality swimmers and hopefully we’ll be in the same situation.”
Wapakoneta senior Josie Miller is proud of how far her team has come since her freshman season.
“This feels awesome, we’ve been working on it since we were freshmen,” Miller said. “That was definitely a major goal of ours to achieve. Having the trophy in hand was a bitter sweet moment. I’m proud of the team. Everyone swam to the best of their ability.”
Having great leadership from the upperclassmen is key in any sport. Having underclassmen step up in big ways can take any team to the next level.
“There are times where we have four individuals in an event,” Law said. “You can throw your underclassmen in there and earn some points. There were several events (at WBLs) where many of them placed.”
Breaking records along the way always helps out. On the girls’ side, Mya Hager has the school record for the 100 breaststroke and Jordyn Law broke the record in the 200 freestyle.
On the boys’ side, the 200 medley relay record was broken by the team of Michael Johnston, Wesley Ruedebusch, Ryan Schneider and Charlie Sutton. Johnston, Ruedebusch, Sutton and Michael Zwez broke the 200 freestyle relay. Schneider, Sutton, Johnston and Zwez own the 400 freestyle relay. Sutton has individual records in the 200 individual medley and the 100 butterfly. Johnston owns the 100 backstroke record.
“We have great kids that work hard,” Law said. “Their commitment has been great this year. We expect a lot out of them. We do two a days for almost the whole season. They have reaped some of those benefits off of that.”
Miller expects another great effort from her team heading into sectionals.
“Most of the teams are back,” Miller said. “Last year was kind of a surprise because I didn’t really know that we won until they finally told us. Once we got the win it was a good feeling. We have to stay focused heading in.”
